Paul Krugman Says Romney Would ‘Blow Up Deficit, Depress Economy’

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman believes that a Mitt Romney presidency would send the United States into a “double-dip recession” and further burden the already penny-pinching middle-class.

Speaking with HuffPost Live on Wednesday, Krugman was asked what the worst case scenario is if the GOP presidential nominee should become president. Highlighting that “there’s so many,” Krugman focused on the Republican hopeful’s policy and the deficit.

“I think there is a real chance that he will manage to pursue a policy in the first couple of years that simultaneously blows up the deficit and depresses the economy,” Krugman said. “Tax cuts for the rich, who won’t spend them, and slash spending for the poor and the middle-class, who will be forced to cut back. And so we end up managing to have simultaneous deficit explosion and double-dip recession, which will you know, that will not be happy times.”

Krugman, who won the Nobel in 2008 for work on the New Trade Theory and New Economic Geography, said the Republican policies could result in an American economy that resembles that of Greece.

“There’s almost no bottom on what could happen – depression,” he said. “Look at Greece. Look at what’s happening. Actually it’s the Republican policies that are much more likely to make us end up like Greece.”

In July, Greece’s unemployment record was a record 25 percent, according to the BBC. The unemployment level among its young people was approximately 54 percent. The international community is keeping Greece’s economy afloat with bailouts, but it’s likely the country will enter another year of recession.

Romney has proposed a controversial tax plan to cut the U.S. deficit and balance the budget. However, his Democratic critics have argued that the Romney plan favors the wealthy and will have to affect the middle class for it to work.

Several experts have said that for the Republican’s plan to work, there has to be some give and take, and if there’s none of that, then Romney’s plan doesn’t add up.

Watch the interview below: